10 Oct 2011
Bachmann suburbans - part 8 Final Assembly
OK with all of the testing out of the way, now is the time for final assembly. Starting with securing the lamp strip PCB in the brake coach. As before I used the sticky pads supplied with the FF2 kit, and then cut a bit off the tops of the compartment partitions to allow it to fit. Careful positioning was necessary to allow the leds to fit 1 per compartment...
Then to provide a place to interconnect the pickup wires I superglued a small piece of tag strip on the floor of the interior moulding - immediately between the two access holes for the pickup wires.
Finally I secured the two FF2 units and the FL2 decoder with some double sided auto foam tape. By this stage things are complicated as you have the pickup wires coming through the bogie through the chassis, through the interior moulding and secured onto the tag strip, and at the same time you have the wiring also connected to the rear lamp and the exterior moulding mounted pcb lamp strip - soo inevitably it ends up a bit of a birds nest.
it is a bit of a fiddle to get all of the wires into the rear brake compartment as you reassmble all of the pieces and you may find the ready and frequent use of expletives helpful.
Once assembled - at least it worked - the lamps are perhaps a little too dim and subtle for my liking (or for good photography) but this is probably realisitic and certainly better than the ridiculously bright output you see on some models. I think if I do it again I will either choose some brighter LEDs or drive less off a single FF2.
Below are some pics of the finished job, the complete absence of flickering is excellent....
